Wednesday, December 28, 2016

A new one of my articles has just been published in the Australian Quadrant magazine (Vol. 61 No.1-2, January-February 2017 edition), that attempts to kick the crap out of the historians who write off the 'Phoney War' as a period where nothing happened.

It is based on the proposed Allied March 1940 plan to move troops through Norway and Sweden to assist Finland against the Soviet invaders they had been remarkably successful in resisting for several months.

The 10 issues I cover are:

1, The Myth that the Soviet Union was strong in 1940.
2. The Myth that Germany was strong in 1940.
3. The Myth that the British were flailing for a strategy in 1940.
4. The Myth that Poland's collapse made everyone believe in 'Blitzkreig'.
5. The Myth that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact could not last.
6. The Myth that the sides were already fixed.
7. The Myth that intervention would not improve the Allied situation.
8. The Myth that intervention would be militarily foolish for the Allies.
9. The Myth that the Allies could have chosen not to help Finland.
10. The Myth that Norway and Sweden would oppose an intervention.

The fun part is the reason behind the story.

Orders were actually given by the British and French Chiefs of Staff at 6.30pm on March 12, 1940, for the landings in Norway to go ahead the next day. Only last minute duplicity by the Socialist Foreign Minister of Finland Vaino Tanner to hide this information from the cabinet while he forced through a surrender before midnight, prevented the war from developing into a Molotov-Ribbentropp Pact war against Britain, France, and probably their new allies - including possibly Italy, Japan, Turkey, Scandinavia and the Balkans countries...

(and having reviewed some of the discussion groups that insist on
misquoting me), I though it might be useful to make a couple of reflections
that show just how silly these debates can get.

First lets make the key point – in the battle between
offense and defence, the pendulum keeps swinging.

When I do a discussion with a school group about medieval
weapons and armour, I point out that the fanciest sword is no good, if it can’t
defeat a new style of armour; and the fanciest armour is no good, if offensive
weapons can defeat it. It is always about ‘does this weapon defeat the defence,
or does the defence defeat the weapon’.

In WWII this means two things.

First: that even spectacularly effective offensive aircraft
from 1939 or 1942 are usually hopeless in the same circumstances against
improved defences two years later.

Second: that technological change will require adapting new
methods.

Third: that the 'best' aircraft at a given time, is not necessarily going to do the job best at that time, if other elements of the offence vs defence balance need to be considered!

There were many torpedo bombers of course – from bad carrier
versions, like the Devestator and the Barracuda, to good land versions, like
the Beaufort and the Condor, but for the sake of the argument, I will stick to
the two contrasting torpedo bombers that make the most interesting point about
what worked best when, and why…

To put that in perspective, lets start with the significant
point that the most successful (in terms of tonnage sunk), torpedo bomber of
the war – the Fairey Swordfish – was a technological relict even before the war
began; while the most successful (in terms of being technologically advanced
and impressive to crews) torpedo bomber of the war – the TBM Avenger – was a
complete failure in its first actions!

The Fairey Swordfish is possibly the most amazing/amusing
aircraft of the war. An old style biplane, with a ridiculously slow attack
speed (only 138mph for early versions): it was nonetheless the only allied
combat aircraft to remain in production, and in front line combat squadrons,
throughout the entire war.

Known as the ‘Stringbag’ not because of its old fashioned
wire and fabric construction, but because – like an old ladies string shopping
bag – it could be adapted to an incredible range of loads and tasks: the
Swordfish was as success mainly because it could keep changing its functions.

Operating as a conventional torpedo bomber for the first
half of the war, the Swordfish – despite its antiquated appearance – had
innumerable successes. From sinking the first U-boat sunk, to manning the first
escort carriers, to rocket strikes on miniature submarines in river mouths in
the last days of the war. From disabling the Bismarck and the Italian cruiser
Zara in day actions to allow British battleships to catch them; to the first
radar guided night attacks on ships and submarines of the war. From the
spectacular success in daylight against the anchored French Fleet at Mers El
Kebir, to that at night against the anchored Italian fleet at Taranto. (Where a
mere 21 obsolescent Stringbags sunk or disabled 3 battleships, 2 cruisers, 2
destroyers, several other ships, a dozen seaplanes AND did the sort of damage
to oil an port facilities against a well defended and prepared base during
wartime that the Imperial Japanese Navy conspicuously failed to achieve with
multiple strikes by ten times the number of much more advanced aircraft at an unprepared
and practically defenceless Pearl Harbour during peacetime).

Of course the Swordfish had many failures too… failures that
point to the fact that it HAD to change its role to survive.

The incredible manoeuvrability of the Swordfish meant that
it was probably the only combat aircraft that could have slipped between the
barrage balloons defending the Italian fleet at Taranto, but the appallingly
slow speed meant it often couldn’t catch fast moving ships (like the French
Dunkerque escaping at Mers El Kebir). It’s success against the Bismarck was
partly due to the fact that it flew so incredibly slowly that the Bismarck’s
anti aircraft predictors could not slow down enough, and constantly fired
shells far in advance of the aircraft. Which was fine if there was no fighter
cover! But a few months later the 6 Swordfish that tried to strike the German
battle-cruisers and cruiser running up the Channel in daylight were sitting
ducks to German fighters in daylight (despite some inadequate attempts at
fighter escort). Both the British and German admirals commented very admiringly
of their amazing courage and determination, but very much along the lines of
the French general who witnessed the charge of the Light Brigade at
Balaclava…”it’s magnificent, but it’s not war!”

By 1942 the Swordfish, or its successor the Albacore (which
it outlasted in service in the end), simply could not operate in daylight if
the enemy had any sort of air cover. But the fact that they had Air–Surface
search radar from mid 1941 meant that they remained effective strike aircraft at
night, when the enemy COULDN’T intercept them.

This is where the TBM Avenger must be considered. Certainly
technically the best torpedo bomber of the war, and one that served well into
the 1950’s, it was nonetheless a failure at its first actions. At Midway for
instance, 5 of the 6 available were smashed out of the sky (a much higher loss
percentage than that of the slow and obsolete Devestator torpedo bombers they
were replacing).This is for the simple
reason that even the best and fastest and most advanced torpedo bombers could
not survive against fighter cover in daylight at this stage of the war. (Only
much later in the war when the allies achieved overwhelming superiority could
the Avenger’s operate safely…. But that same circumstance would have mead the
Swordfish or Albacore or Devestator completely successful day torpedo bombers
again, so that is not saying much).

So the Swordfish and Albacore could be considered more
dangerous and unstoppable torpedo aircraft than the much more advanced Avenger
for the two years it took until the Avenger could also operate as a night
bomber. (Or for the 3 years until the Avenger had overwhelming fighter cover to
get it through in daylight.)

Meanwhile of course, the Royal Navy had also adopted the
Avenger, and also fitted it for night strikes. But still found jobs a plenty
that the Swordfish could do, and the Avenger couldn’t.

First and foremost, was escort carriers. They were so small
and slow, that a loaded Avenger usually needed them to be sailing full speed
into the wind for a successful take-off, whereas a loaded Swordfish could often
take off from one at anchor in harbour if there was even a moderate breeze over
the deck. More importantly, if the convoys in the north Atlantic faced rough
weather that tossed the ships up and down dramatically, the Swordfish was slow
and manouvrable enough to continue the flying operations and landings that were
inconceivable to faster more modern aircraft.

Next is flexibility. Swordfish operated successfully as
seaplanes, floatplanes, ski-planes, land planes, and carrier planes. They
operated from land bases too short for other aircraft; from fields too rough
for other aircraft; and from frozen fjords too exposed to the elements for
other aircraft. They flew from catapults on battleships and cruisers, from Merchant
Catapult Ships, from Escort carriers and Fleet carriers. They operated as
torpedo bombers, dive bombers, level bombers, rocket bombers, depth charge
bombers; and in conditions ranging from arctic to desert airstrips, and from
tropical cyclones to Atlantic sleet storms. They operated successfully both day
and night (at a time when few other aircraft could), and continued to be
successfully deployed to new tasks when many younger designs (including some
specifically designed to replace them) failed to adapt to new needs.

After that comes survivability. Everyone was astonished how
much damage a Swordfish could absorb and still come home. Rents, tears, holes
in every surface, the Swordfish would just soldier on. (And could often be
repaired with a few canvas patches hastily glued in place, and sent straight
back into action.) The Swordfish was to aircraft what the USS Yorktown was to
ships!

Finally, the Swordfish was simply the most successful
torpedo bomber of the war. It damaged and sank more warships (German, Italian,
Japanese and French!), more submarines, more merchant ships, more torpedo
boats, more midget subs, more just about anything, than any other single type
of plane in the inventory of either Axis or Allies. On one occasion in Libya,
just three torpedoes from three land based Swordfish sank four ships (2
U-boats, a destroyer and a supply ship). In fact a single Swordfish group
varying between 12 - 27 aircraft operating from Malta sank about half a million
tons of Axis shipping in nine months – pretty much equivalent to the wartime
totals of the Condor, or Judy, or Kate, or Beaufort, or B25, or Dauntless or
Helldiver; and not much short of the total for the Avenger.

So, although there is no doubt that the Avenger was a much
better aircraft; or that the Kate had a much more dramatic impact in its few
short months of effectiveness; or the Beaufighter was incredibly more accurate:
the simple fact is that – in so many ways – the best carrier torpedo bomber of
WWII was a slow, lightly armed, almost completely obsolescent biplane, that
just kept on finding new ways to do things no other aircraft could…

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

One of the most amusing things about the 2016 Olympic Games was that the medal tally bore an astonishing resemblance to a table of post World War Two 'great power' nations.

Consider this 2016 medal tally list in terms of World War Two and the 1945 peace settlements, and where the various economic and colonial powers stood at the time.

1. US
2. Britain
3. China
4. Russia
5. Germany
6. Japan
7. France

Notice anything familiar about the pattern so far?

Below that, the tally becomes a little more interesting, with a surprise entrance by South Korea at number 8, but only in the last few days of the competition. Up until then the last spots switched a bit between 3 or 4 countries who eventually finished:

9. Italy
10. Australia
11. Netherlands

As Australians, we can be amused that we sneak in over the once great colonial power The Netherlands. Sometimes during the competition, we led France and Italy as well! We can also boast that we come in above Canada, which had, and still has, considerably greater population and GDP. (I suppose Canada has never taken sport as seriously as Australia... Do they even have a cricket team?)

Still, thinking about Canada brings up another interesting comparison.

Consider the Anglosphere.

The United States with way more than twice the population and close to three times the combined GDP, of the rest of the 'old' Anglosphere nations* - Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland - still gets less medals (121) than the others (144).

Would it be fair to say that the US clearly isn't trying as hard as the rest of us?

Should we also note that the Anglosphere alone, despite consisting of only 6% of the worlds population, accounts for more than 26% of the world's medal tally?

Does this tell us anything useful about 'great powers' in general? Does it help explain why the Anglosphere has pretty much ordered the world for the last three centuries? Does it contribute to the global dominance of the English language? Or does it suggest that sports dominance equals 'soft' cultural power?

No idea, really. But someone should be able to get a research grant, even if only on the injustice of the Olympics being clearly a repressive representation of WASP culture. (After all, Catholic Ireland only counts for 8 of the Anglosphere's 265 medals... sort of proves the point really!).

What it does suggest, is
that all those who claim the West in general, and the Anglosphere in
particular, are in relative decline, had better check their numbers. On these
figures, the Anglosphere will remain at the top of the podium for another
century at least.

* (321 million US population vs a combined 130 million for the rest; and 17, 348,000 million US$ vs a combined $6,626,152 million according to Wikipedia''s Anglosphere article sourced 22.8.2016)

Friday, June 24, 2016

Well, I drafted
this a couple of weeks ago, but got distracted and didn’t publish it until it’s
too late (at least to be predictive). Shame really, I probably like being able
to say ‘I told you so’, even more than the average egotist. Still, some of the
points still have some relevance…

The reason
pollsters get so much so wrong, is that they are just a subset of the
chattering class.

They are
university educated, inner urban, part of the ‘knowledge’ economy, and try to
look like they are actually trendy. They hang out with the latte set, circulate
mainly within the ‘goat-cheese circle’, and spend as much time as possible
doing media commentary with like minded chattering class loonies.

The idea that
their privileged, insular existence, leads them to fail to communicate with the
great unwashed, pretty much fails to occur to them.

(Which could be
why the Brussels bureaucrats, British chattering classes; conga line of
international political twats from Obama to Turnball; and big business PR faces:
all worked so hard to convince themselves that British voters would ignore Angela
Merkels unilateral announcement of the collapse of the EU - when she announced
an open door to Europe… NOTE: I have long since been fond of saying that eventually the
Germans would find their third attempt to take over Europe in a century might
end no better than the other two… perhaps worse. Well now we’re going to find
out.)

I occasionally
succumb to curiosity about pollsters, and actually let a cold caller or an
on-line survey through, just to see how unthinkingly biased the questions are.
The sad fact is that I, like most people NOT of the chattering classes (despite
the fact that I am a university educated inner urban professional with no kids)
would usually hang up on such callers.

The other
exceptions, who will actually answer questions, often being so bored and
lonely, or starving for attention, that they will talk to anyone… often
agreeing with whatever crap the interviewer clearly favours just to get
approval.

When I do bother
to answer, I am amazed at how clearly the preconceptions of the questioner come
through.

Sometimes it is
just the dreadful phrasing… Instead of saying ‘do you favour Brexit or
Bremain?’, the question is actually more likely to be ‘are you willing to take
the risk of flushing everything you have ever known down the toilet, or do you
prefer stability?’. Amusingly, they usually don’t even realise this might be a
problem.

I had enormous fun
playing with these sorts of phrasings in first year Psychology class… it was
great how you could – Yes Minister like – order 3 or 4 leading questions to get
any answer you like…”

[Sir Humphrey demonstrates how public surveys can reach
opposite conclusions]

The problem is, of
course, that most modern pollsters don’t even realize that they are biasing the
responses. They are simply convinced that ‘ALL RIGHT THINKING PEOPLE BELIEVE
X’, so their questions are rarely phrased in a way that doesn’t assume that
anyone who believes anything else must be a moron or a criminal deviant.

Even when the
questions are actually better phrased, you can usually tell by the tone of
voice how you are expected to respond.

I once tried
saying the absolute opposite of whatever the pollster clearly wanted to one of these
phone callers. You could hear the strain in his voice as he tried to sound as
though he was just calmly going through questions while really thinking ‘this
guy is a f******* idiot’.

Try it sometime,
it can be fun... If you're really, really bored.

So the pollsters
managed to avoid the obvious response of the huge number of people who are sick
of politicians talking down to them, and convince themselves that their
preferred outcome was obvious.

They managed to
ignore the fact that all the Bremains Chicken Little Act (yes I mean you David ‘the sky will fall’ Cameron), was so clearly manipulative crap, and assume that
people would be scared for it on mass. The obvious response – that people would be so pissed off at the lies they might revolt – apparently didn't occur to them.

(Amusingly, the only ones to take it
seriously appear to be… the chattering classes! Despite the fact that this is a
tactic they themselves invented to manipulate the unwashed?)

You might imagine
that the fact that they got last years British election so wrong (or the
Scottish referendum so wrong, etc) by only listening to the feedback their prejudices
demanded, might have had an effect? Apparently not.

It’s not that they
are too wedded to their failed models, its that they are too wedded to their
pre-conceptions.

I am irresistibly
reminded of Australia’s referendum on a republic a while back.

Every single
member of the chattering class - every newspaper, every commentator, every
radio program – was absolutely convinced the referendum would walk it in, in a
land slide. The confusion when not a single state supported it. (I don’t count
Hot Air Central as a useful political division, seeing the entire town is
designed and built for the chattering classes to gorge themselves at the
taxpayers trough.)

The only sad part
is that the markets are so prone to gullibly swallow what the chattering
commentators say, that they had their normal panick about the sky falling.

How dare people do
what their betters have told them is wrong!

(I am actually
going to the UK in a couple of weeks, and my wife is there now. Wish I had the
organizational ability to jump on the exchange rate when the markets did their
initial panick. Could have saved a fortune on what things will be back to
almost immediately.)

Still it gives one
to think about a few other things the pollsters are likely to screw up.

Donald Trump
definitely won’t get anywhere in primaries… Well he won’t win the candidacy….
Well he can’t win the presidency…

Keep talking guys.
The more you put down your own voters, the better he will do.

(Not saying that’s
a good thing… the man’s a protectionist moron. But Obama and George W and
Clinton and… well you get the idea… are not exactly sensible coherent
internationalists are they? As a side comment, the US now is going through the weariness and
incompetent insularity that led British interwar voters to simultaneously vote
for more action to enforce peace, and disarmament, and believe both were not
mutually exclusive! Possibly with similar consequences long term?)

Pollsters, if they
want to reclaim any relevance, need to stop acting like those sad universities who
actually sack anyone who dares to question the accepted orthodoxy just because
it is based on distorting the facts to fit.

They have to
actually accept that people who aren’t the elite few might have opinions that
have value.

But that would
require them to accept that their limited insular clique is not the one true
holder of the truth?

The nobility
managed it, eventually (well, after the occasional revolution). The clergy
managed it, a bit (after enough child abuse scandals). The Marxists have gone
underground (or to the Greens, or to anti-bullying programs). Perhaps the
chatterers might manage it too?

Saturday, February 20, 2016

There is an excellent, if somewhat
accidental, section on Generalship in one of Tom Clancy’s earliest and best
books Red Strom Rising (from the Cold
War period he understood, not the post Cold War world he doesn’t have a clue
about).

His Soviet ‘hero’, Pavel Leonidovich
Alekseyev, the Deputy Commander of the Southwest Front is exhausting himself
preparing troops for battle, when his boss points out that in actual combat,
hard learned experience would ensure that senior officers get enough regular
rest to allow them to make good and clear decisions. Pavel admits the point,
and is fast asleep before his vehicle gets back to HQ.

The implication being
that this common sense approach by his superior is what leaves Pavel functional
at the critical point a few weeks later when everyone else’s responses are
lethargic and doctrinal.

It is an excellent point for short term
command decisions, but equally important for the long term durability of
generals.

Historically, generals can function in the
heat of battle successfully for months at a time… as long as they get
sufficient rest during proceedings, and then a significant break before taking
on the next major battle. But any general, no matter how good, will reach a
point of decline in health, morals, leadership and decisiveness, if he tries to
stay at peak performance for too long.

In his 20’s Alexander the Great made
himself function for months at a time over several years… but the decline
towards the end was very obvious. His men wanted out and his officers were
revolting (literally as well as figuratively).

Napoleon achieved similar results as a
younger man, but the sick old man who returned to power – lasting barely 100
days before spiraling out of control – was in no shape to command at Waterloo.

Worse is the list of previously great
generals who were far too old when thrust back into command. Petain, the great
hero of France of the Great War, was representative of too many old generals as
a washed out shell in World War Two. Kitchener and Cardigan are other samples,
and I am sure you can think of many more.

The number of generals, particularly junior
generals, who drove themselves to physical collapse, is also well recorded in
history. In World War Two, any numbers of generals were incapacitated at
crucial moments, from Germans on the Eastern front, to Australians in New
Guinea. In North Africa alone, physical or mental collapses by: Cunningham
(General not Admiral), Gott, Rommel, Stumme, Rommel again, Gort, and a number
of lesser generals, were reflective of overwork and exhaustion.

Admiral Pound and Genreal Dill both died in harness, and both were clearly performing far less than optimally towards the end of their service. And then there is Roosevelt...

Wavell too was
exhausted when he left the Middle East, and his lack of rest before being
thrown into the ABDA command was a large part of the cause of some of the
disasters there.

In the very short term, days, or at most
weeks: adrenaline can keep most people functioning way beyond normal timespans…
but the term is functioning. Performing it is not. Reactions slow, thought
processes slow, creativity craps out, reflexive action becomes default, deeper
reflection stops. Any sensible soldier would prefer a well-rested and
thoughtful general in charge, which is why even Communist armies eventually
learned to give up on idealistic claptrap and assign batmen and cooks and other
support staff to their officers if they wanted any success at all.

Montgomery’s practice of going to bed at a
reasonable hour and telling his staff not to wake him unless it was an
emergency… and probably not then if there was nothing useful he could do about
it: is an excellent example of a general maintaining his usefulness to his men
in combat . It is particularly relevant to a 3 or 4 star general that someone
commanding a Corps or Army – or even Army Group – should have distance and
perspective.

On the other hand Montgomery was clearly
emotionally exhausted by the time of the Battle of the Bulge, and in need of
rest at that point. His ever increasing isolation at his forward tactical
headquarters was starting to have a detrimental effect on his control of this
Army Group, and both the failure to concentrate on Antwerp and the inadequate
co-ordination of the Market-Garden operation were not up to the standards he
had set himself in North Africa, Sicily, or at D-Day.

This leads to the interesting point that
although Eisenhower was right to leave Montgomery in charge for the completion
of the D-Day/Normandy campaign, he may have been right to not leave him as
ground forces commander after the exhausting battle of Normandy was over. (In a
similar fashion, Lee had undoubtedly been right to believe that Slim needed a
rest after the conquest of Burma before preparing the next major operation… a
fact pretty much proved by Slim’s unusually emotional response to being
‘sacked’.)

Mind you Eisenhower was wrong to imagine he
could be his own Ground Forces commander at the same time as running the
theatre as a whole; dealing with international and inter-service rivalries; and
negotiating with difficult allies and collapsing enemies.

He was wrong for two reasons.

First, that no one man could do
Eisenhower’s real job and still be a useful ground forces commander (which is
why every single other theatre – even quite small and relatively simple ones
like Burma or New Guinea –separated the roles).

Second, Eisenhower was already a chain
smoking and exhausted wreck, who himself had failed to cope with the stresses
of the Normandy campaign, and desperately needed a rest.

When I raise with
people the idea that too much was being attempted by too few for too long, the
initial reaction is, far too often’ ‘there was no choice’!

Poppycock.

Montgomery or
Slim were no more ‘the vital and irreplaceable man’ than Eisenhower or
MacArthur. There were certainly many choices.

Bradley spent the
first part of the Normandy campaign as an Army Commander, and was then promoted
to Army Group Commander. See, simple choice. He could just as easily, and
probably more sensibly, have been left as an Army commander, under Devers or
Patton as Army Group Commander. (He probably would have been better if not
promoted too far too fast).

Or, the invasion
army – 1st – could have been rested while 3rd and 9th
armies did the pursuit, and brought up – reinforced and refreshed – when
the advance ran out of steam a few months later.

Patton's 'sulk' during the Metz stalemate, Hodges apparent physical collapse at the Bulge, and Bradley's increasingly irrational responses there and later: show how even a few months in unrelieved combat can have straining effects. Similarly Crerar's enforced 'rest' allowing Simpkin to excel.

Meanwhile after
the breakout Alexander could have taken over as Ground Forces commander for the
pursuit phase, leaving Montgomery a few months of recuperation to tackle the breakthrough
fighting on the German frontier. Perhaps General Bernard Paget (the commander
of the British Home Army who had trained the units for the invasion) could
have taken over 21st Army Group for the pursuit. Or perhaps he could
have been brought in for Ground Forces if Alexander was too vital in Italy? (Or
Wilson, or Wavell, or Lavarack, or Devers, or Slim, or Eichelberger, or….
Plenty of choices.)

The simple fact
is that Ike and Monty were tired, and both were working at less than peak
performance. As Pavel Alekseyev’s superior would have noted, both needed a
break.

It is an
unfortunate truth that Western Democracies are terrible at giving generals a
break to refresh. The Germans and Soviets and even Japanese rotated Army and
Army Group commanders around all over the place, regularly pulling them back to
‘reserve’, and regularly re-assigning them to a new position a few months
later. The British and Americans however, usually tried to persevere with the
same leader until he failed… and I do mean ‘until’, because even the best ones
– Wavell comes to mind – slowly lose ground over repeated years of stress,
and eventually have to be sacked.

Alan Brooke, on
the brink of being appointed British CIGS, was not opposed to the replacement
of Wavell in 1941, but felt it ridiculous to ‘sack’ him. Brooke wanted him
bought home for a few months rest and recuperation before re-assignment. But
Churchill didn’t want him in London where he might cause trouble, and banished
him to India… Unfortunately there he was thrown straight back into a role as
CIC India, and was barely getting on top of that when he was dragged back into
service against the Japanese WITHOUT the benefit of having had a few months
rest.

There is no doubt
that if Brooke had given him 6 months off, Wavell would have been in much
better shape for another active role later in the war. Wavell as either Supreme
or Land Forces commander of the invasion of North Africa (or Italy) is by no
means unrealistic. Wavell as Churchill’s representative to Stalin (he spoke
superb Russian) would have been fascinating. Wavell on the Combined Chiefs of
Staff is harder to imagine, but not impossible. But Wavell – unscarred by ‘sacking’
– taking over as CIGS if Brooke had been released for field command in 1944 –
in France or Italy or Asia – was also possible.

Which leads us to
Brooke and Churchill.

Brooke had
carried the can for Allied strategy from November 1941 to the invasion of Italy
in 1943, and both needed and deserved a break. There is no doubt that he had
achieved his greatest impact on the war by steering Allied strategy
successfully to the point where the surrender of Italy and clearing of the
Mediterranean had finally made an invasion of France possible. His strategic
impact was already in decline by that point (partly because most of the
strategy to see out the was already set, and partly because Marshall and and
others just didn’t want to be steered by him anymore): but it is arguable that
this decline in influence was at least as much because of increasing tiredness
as anything else.

Brooke needed a
break, and to be re-assigned to a fresh job where he could do most good.
Preferably six months off before taking over as Supreme Allied Commander for
the Invasion of France; but also possibly as SAC Med if Alexander continued to
serve as Ike’s Land Forces Commander; or as SAC South East Asia to deal with
Burma, Malaya and the East Indies.

Either way
Brooke’s impact on the war might have been increased, and his replacement as
CIGS might have brought in renewed perspectives and energy.

The same applies,
I am afraid, to Churchill. He too needed a break for a few months between the
surrender of Italy and the invasion of France. This would of course have been
much harder for a politician than for a military man, but it ids nonetheless
true. One of the reasons Churchill was so shattered by his loss of the 1945
general election was his exhaustion… and in fact one of the reasons for that
loss was his exhaustion. Had he been able to take a few months off in late 1943
or early 1944, he would have faced the end of the war with renewed energy. (And
faced the almost inevitable loss of the following election with far more
realism and stoicism.)

It is hard to
imagine how such a break could have been managed under a system where it was
not understoof that generals needed breaks. But it is interesting to imagine
how it might have worked had that principle been understood. If the CIC of the
British military – King George VIII – had been in the habit of accepting rest
periods for his generals, it is easier to imagine him suggesting (or even
ordering) rest periods for his Prime Ministers! An amusing side thought, but
certainly not beyond the realms of possibility in the Westminster system…

Eisenhower is
another person who desperately needed a rest. He went from running the invasion
of North Africa, and the resulting political settlements there (while others
largely dealt with the military issues); to running the invasion of Sicily and
then Italy, and the resulting political settlements there (while others largely
dealt with the military issues); straight to running the invasion of France, and the resulting political settlements there (while imagining he could
simultaneously deal with the military issues): without much of a break. This
was extremely foolish, and arguably had a very negative effect on Allied
operations in France, and on the political outcome in Europe (which saw much of
central Europe unnecessarily fall to the Soviets).

In fact it is
hard to imagine that anything except exhaustion affecting his judgement could
have led him to imagine he could suddenly combine both the political and
military roles effectively, when his previous history had seen such poor
outcomes when he tried to concentrate on a single job. It is possible that he
had such an outbreak of overwhelming hubris and arrogance that he might have
tried to do the same thing even if rested… but lets be kind and suggest that his
decision sounds more like exhaustion overcoming common sense.

Again, he needed
a good few months break – preferably at home resting in the US – before being
re-assigned to D-Day: rather than being thrown straight back in. He was clearly
approaching an exhausted nervous wreck by the time the invasion began, and his testy
and emotional responses to any delays, countered by his delirious over
confidence when things seemed to be going well: give a poor impression of
someone at their best performance.

Paget should have
been left to plan the invasion while Ike rested. If Ike was to command, he
should have taken over fresh a few weeks before operations began, to have a
chance to make it to the end of the war. As it was, he may have been right to
think Monty needed less responsibility after the Normandy breakout, but he was
clearly wrong to imagine he could handle everything thereafter. The
directionless wandering of his broad front ‘strategy’ was only exceeded by his
failures to grasp that the end goal of the war was a stable political
settlement in Europe.

In that of course
he reflected his boss, Marshall, who was one of the old fashioned ‘just win and
go home’ generals. He clearly had no comprehension that ‘just going home’ might
mean you had to come back again later… He clearly never understood that his
‘political’ solutions would just mean that the US had to ‘come back’ in NATO,
or to in Korea, or Vietnam, or… well you get the idea. (This lack of
understanding was in fact a terrible misreading of his own nations history in
such matters. A 19th century British diplomat had once questioned an
American ambassador on the US’s habit of repeatedly invading Central American
countries, demanding open elections, and going home. “What do you do when the
election gets a result you don’t like?”. “Oh, we just invade again.”)

It is hard to say
whether Marshall’s failings at the crucial ‘make a balanced peace’ part of the
war were just his limited understanding of how international relations worked,
or a sign of him being exhausted too. Charitably, it would be nice to suggest
that it was at least partially caused by overtiredness and irritability.
Certainly his far wiser approach to the Marshall Plan indicates that he could
do better on international understanding… though perhaps that was a hard
learned lesson. But the problem with ‘resting’ Marshall at any point was that his CIC – Roosevelt – was by that time so sick that he wouldn’t have felt
secure to take the risk of a change even if he had had the insight to believe it
might be useful.

The real pity of
this is that the Allies did have quite excellent samples of how it could work. On
a small scale, Wavell had lasted as long as he did in the Middle East by making
a couple of trips to London, and leaving another general (Blamey) to run things
while he was gone. It worked fine.

For the invasion
of Sicily various generals – including Patton – were pulled out of front line
roles to prepare for the next operation.

Montgomery himself twice – North Africa and France – pulled Horrocks out of the line for a rest in preparation for future operations... If only he'd accepted the same applied to himself!

In Macarthur’s
command (partly accidentally given the Australian vs American confusion) this
became a regular practice of a new general overseeing each operation, and the
rested general having a break before preparing the next operation.

MacArthur sort of
continued this pattern even with just American generals like Eichelberger and
Krueger swapping with 6th and 8th armies respectively
from Buna to the Philippines.

More
significantly, 3rdand 5th
Fleets perfected the idea of one Admiral running an operation while the other
takes a break and then prepares the next operation.

That’s the way to
do it!

The general lack
of imagination by the Allied command systems in deciding who needed a rest
when, is responsible for two significant issues.

1)Good generals being sacked and
discarded for being overtired, when a little R&R would see them back fresh,
experienced, and continuing to develop. And

2)Tired generals making mistakes
that increased casualties and lengthened the war.

It is simply not
possible to estimate the damage done to the Allies and to the world, by the
unwillingness to give good leaders desperately needed breaks.

About Me

A professional historian and educator challenges some assumptions.
(A sometimes tongue-in-cheek polemic, with a Socratic emphasis on challenging people to argue back. Please do so... I make some of it outrageous largely to encourage a debate).